The prophet had declared that evil should come down on Samaria and Jerusalem for their sins. He had pronounced them sinners against God; he now speaks of their hard unlovingness toward man, as our Blessed Lord in the Gospel speaks of sins against Himself in His members, as the ground of the condemna... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THEY COVET FIELDS AND TAKE THEM BY VIOLENCE - (rend them away) and houses, and take them away Still, first they sin in heart, then in act. And yet, with them, to covet and to rob, to desire and to take, are the same. They were prompt, instantaneous, without a scruple, in violence. So soon as the... [ Continue Reading ]
Such had been their habitual doings. They had done all this, he says, as one continuous act, up to that time. They were habitually devisers of iniquity, doers of evil. It was ever-renewed. By night they sinned in heart and thought; by day, in act. And so he speaks of it in the present. They do it. B... [ Continue Reading ]
IN THAT DAY SHALL ONE TAKE UP A PARABLE AGAINST YOU - The mashal or likeness may, in itself, be any speech in which one thing is likened to another: 1) “figured speech,” 2) “proverb,” and, since such proverbs were often sharp sayings against others, 3) “taunting figurative speech.” But of the per... [ Continue Reading ]
THEREFORE THOU SHALT HAVE NONE THAT SHALL EAST A CORD BY LOT IN THE CONGREGATION OF THE LORD - Thou, in the first instance, is the impenitent Jew of that day. God had promised by Hosea to restore Judah; shortly after, the prophet himself foretells it Micah 2:12. Now he forewarns these and such as th... [ Continue Reading ]
PROPHESY YE NOT, SAY THEY TO THEM THAT PROPHESY; THEY SHALL NOT PROPHESY TO THEM, THAT THEY SHALL NOT TAKE SHAME - The words are very emphatic in Hebrew, from their briefness, “Prophesy not; they shall indeed prophesy; they shall not prophesy to these; shame shall not depart.” The people, the false... [ Continue Reading ]
O THOU THAT ART NAMED THE HOUSE OF JACOB - As Isaiah says, “Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel - which make mention of the God of Israel, not in truth, nor in righteousness. For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel” Isa... [ Continue Reading ]
EVEN OF LATE - (Literally, yesterday.) Jerome: “He imputeth not past sins, but those recent and, as it were, of yesterday.” “My people is risen up vehemently”. God upbraideth them tenderly by the title, “Mine own people,” as John complaineth, “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” John... [ Continue Reading ]
THE WOMEN OF MY PEOPLE HAVE YE CAST OUT FROM THEIR PLEASANT HOUSES - (literally, from her pleasant house,) each from her home. These were probably the widows of those whom they had stripped. Since the houses were their’s, they were widows; and so their spoilers were at war with those whom God had co... [ Continue Reading ]
ARISE YE AND DEPART - Go your way, as being cast out of God’s care and land. It matters not where they went. “For this is not your rest.” As ye have done, so shall it be done unto you. As ye cast out the widow and the fatherless, so shall ye be cast out; as ye gave no rest to those “averse from war,... [ Continue Reading ]
IF A MAN WALKING IN THE SPIRIT AND FALSEHOOD - Literally, “in spirit” (not My Spirit) “and falsehood,” that is, in a lying spirit; such as they, whose woe Ezekiel pronounces Ezekiel 13:3, “Woe unto the foolish prophets who walk after their own spirit and what they have not seen Ezekiel 13:2, Ezekiel... [ Continue Reading ]
I WILL SURELY ASSEMBLE, O JACOB, ALL OF THEE; I WILL SURELY GATHER THE REMNANT OF ISRAEL - God’s mercy on the penitent and believing being the end of all His threatenings, the mention of it often bursts in abruptly. Christ is ever the Hope as the End of prophecy, ever before the prophets’ mind. The... [ Continue Reading ]
THE BREAKER IS COME UP - (gone up) before them; they have broken up (Broken through) and have passed the gate, and have gone forth The image is not of conquest, but of deliverance. They “break through,” not to enter in but to “pass through the gate and go forth.” The wall of the city is ordinarily b... [ Continue Reading ]